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Sunday, May 4, 2014

Enchanted Orb with Daniel de Lorne

Welcome Daniel and thank you for sharing the inspiration behind your new release, Beckoning Blood.
I started writing Beckoning Blood so long ago now that it’s hard to remember all the pieces of inspiration that went into its creation. However, there are some things that stick out, one of which is where the main characters came from.

Beckoning Blood is a book about obsession. And bloody obsession at that. The story follows twin brothers, Olivier and Thierry, from their origins in the medieval French city of Carcassonne where they were made vampire, through the centuries until modern day. Olivier loves his brother but Thierry doesn’t reciprocate. Thierry loves someone else and that’s where things get nasty.

The characters that would later become Thierry and Olivier popped up in a creative writing assignment in my second year of university, some 12 years ago. They were minor characters, much more like twinks than the hulking and brooding men they eventually became. (And for those who don’t know, twinks is a gay term used to describe young gay guys. Think blonde, skinny and pretty.)

These two vampires were really into each other, and took blood brothers to a whole new meaning. But perhaps even before they reared up off the page, the idea of writing about twins was always of interest to me. There’s just something about the duality of twins, of being able to play with ideas of self and other, that really fascinate me. I read a book called Princes by Sonya Hartnett in high school and that’s a pretty dark take on the twins motif. I think it burrowed its way into my psyche.

In the end though, I couldn’t think of way to write a whole book about my original twins that had enough conflict between the two of them. They were perfectly happy with each other and needed no one else. There’d be plenty of external conflict because they were really cold-blooded killers, but not enough internal. So I thought about them a bit more and morphed them into something I could work with.

There’s still a lot of blood, a lot of violence, but it’s as much directed towards each other and their relationship now, than outwards.

So, with Thierry and Olivier summoned to take part, I then thought about setting. I liked the idea of setting their origins in France (which I think is a bow in the direction of Anne Rice’s vampire, Lestat) and then began scouting locations. It was while in a French language class that I stumbled across Carcassonne. This ancient walled city in the south of France sounded ideal. A long history, a walled, almost impenetrable fortress – what atmosphere!

Witches play a role in Beckoning Blood and I happened to discover a record of witch trials taking place in Carcassonne at the end of the 14th century. That seemed as good a time and place to set it and so I did. I like serendipity, don’t you?

A gripping, blood‐drenched saga about twin brothers, the men they love, and the enduring truth that true love never dies — no matter how many times you kill it.

Thierry d’Arjou has but one escape from the daily misery of his work at a medieval abattoir — Etienne de Balthas. But keeping their love a secret triggers a bloody chain of events that condemns Thierry to a monstrous immortality. Thierry quickly learns that to survive his timeless exile, he must hide his sensitive heart from the man who both eases and ensures his loneliness...his twin brother.

Shaped by the fists of a brutal father, Olivier d’Arjou cares for only two things: his own pleasure and his twin. But their sadistic path through centuries is littered with old rivals and new foes, and Olivier must fight for what is rightfully his – Thierry, made immortal for him alone.

Daniel de Lorne writes mostly about the loves and trials of hot and sexy paranormal men – and creatures. He grew up in Perth, Western Australia, and developed a fascination for the mythical and magical early on. Daniel wrote stories from a young age but it was high school biology class he remembers fondly as providing an excellent cover for writing stories that were filled with teen angst and fantastical creatures. He now lives in Canada with his partner. It was while in this great northern frontier that Escape Publishing accepted his first book, Beckoning Blood, for publication.